Winter in the Rockies
Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. A white flower grows in the quietness. Let your tongue become that flower. – Jalaluddin Rumi
Winter is quiet in the Rockies. The weekenders have returned to their busy lives in the city – work, shuttling kids, running errands. Those of us fortunate enough to live here full time bundle up and slow down.
The snow falls and melts, and falls again. As the weeks go by, there is less melting and more accumulation. The ice thickens and becomes covered with snow, silencing the creek’s gentle murmur. A thick white blanket insulates the earth, muffling sounds – the owls calling to each other, the coyotes celebrating a kill.
We awaken predawn to a cold house and begin our morning rituals. Craig builds a fire in the wood stove while I put the kettle on. I sip my tea while he reads aloud – Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, the Dalai Lama – something that helps us adjust our mindset, I read our Rumi poem for the day, invite the bell to sound, and then sit a short meditation as the fire crackles into warmth. On the mornings we drive into town to work or spend time with my mom, sometimes our meditation is only five minutes. Still, it helps. We are not Buddhists, but we’ve found we have much to learn from many traditions.
We’re often asked about the commute. A little over an hour, we try not to do it more than three or four times per week. It’s a beautiful drive. In the winter, we leave in the dark and watch the sunrise slowly illuminate the horizon, reflecting on the frozen lakes and snow covered trees.
The days we are here more than compensate for the days we are not. Even when we’re driving through the snow.
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Still, this is a labor of love. We’re creating something beautiful. When we bought the cabin a year ago, it was a summer weekend residence. It didn’t have year-round water or a heat source other than the wood stove. It had been built in the 70s and the interior was sheathed in dark fake paneling and orange floral wallpaper. I’m still scraping the paper off the walls, but we’re sheet-rocking, putting in double-pane windows, a gas fireplace, on-demand hot water, and electric baseboard heaters. We’ll change the floor and cupboards and update the bathroom. The big change will come in the spring when we add a second bathroom and a cistern system that will allow the cabin to be used year-round. Once we get a little further along, I’ll share some pictures of the inside.
A moose cow visited early this morning. She showed up on camera at about 3:30am, moving slowly through the snow and leaving deep tracks in her wake. In the picture, above, you can see her tracks in the bottom right corner. She followed the same tracks up and back, and wandered the yard a little while she was here.
Until the reverberation of icy air carved open by wings – and two great white snowy owls alighted in the frozen birch beside me. White, on white, on white, and four bright gold eyes blinking. I could have reached out and touched their feathered bodies. I stood breathing in the sparkling silence, blinking back, my toes and fingers and cheeks growing numb.
We finished our breakfast as the light caught the snow on the wagon trail, reflecting pinks and reds and golds between the dark sage. The colors were still evolving when we started down the mountain. It’s always a good day when we see a moose. They bring me back to my childhood in Alaska. But this morning we were blessed with the sunrise, elk, moose, and a herd of deer crossing the road in front of us while drivers flashed their lights at each other in communal protection – of each other, and our fellow mountain dwellers.
When the kids were young, no matter how many times I told myself I wouldn’t do it, I succumbed to those heightened, commercialized, expectations. Craig reminded me the other day that one year we had six Christmas trees of various sizes and themes scattered throughout our home. They were beautiful but, in retrospect, a grasp at that shiny perfection we see on every magazine cover this time of year. If I weighed, now, the effort and expense in putting those trees up with the pleasure they provided, the effort would grossly outweigh the pleasure. And the sparkly dressing never really changed the reality of day-to-day life. Despite the splendor, we had family conflict (even more so because we were all exhausted), we experienced sadness and loss. I remember one year when a loved one overdosed and tried to avoid the paramedics by hiding behind the decorated tree in the dining room. The tree came crashing down onto the table, destroying glass ornaments and the centerpiece. In the end, none of that mattered. The only thing that any of us cared about was that a precious life was saved. We had more time together to learn and grow.